There is no greater sense of foreboding while watching an episode of The Good Wife than the cold open starting with Grace. Sorry Grace, you are usually just filler, and a frustrating piece of it at that. But don’t worry, sweetie, it turns out “Here Comes the Judge” was mostly filler. (Bonus points if you are singing that line in your head a la Once More With Feeling.)

Don’t worry – despite the picture, none of Lockhart/Gardner ended up on trial this time. Well, not exactly. 

So, about Grace (Makenzie Vega)… her story revolved around another Grace at her school killing herself, maybe or maybe not because her boyfriend, Connor, dumped her. Brief word about Connor – he’s played by Luke Kleintank who is a recurring guest star on Bones as one of the squinterns, Finn. Now, he plays the youngest of the squinterns, but he’s still old enough to be one which means college aged at least. And he looks it. As much as I enjoy him, and I am happy to see him on another show I watch, I want to know who in the casting department said, “Oh yeah, he totally looks like a high school student.” Especially on a show that normally casts kids that look like kids. Anyway, small rant over.

So Connor is a “bad boy” that smokes and hides out behind oddly placed foliage around the school. Grace, being Grace, is drawn to him and wants to make sure he isn’t feeling too guilty about his ex killing herself. He says he is cool, and that’s good enough for Grace! She immediately starts skipping classes to hang out with him – something that is caught on camera by one of Peter’s opponents. But Alicia (Juliana Margulies) is now “I’m cool with it Alicia,” and lets Grace hang out with him as long as she continues to be a good girl. Grace is still spouting the word of Jesus to Connor, so it’s all good for now… but for how long? She did kiss him, so that’s a step in the… I’m not sure if it’s the right or wrong direction when it comes to Grace, but I’m willing to see it out. I’m afraid it will just be ridiculous though.

Meanwhile, while Grace is busy giving Eli (Alan Cumming) a heart attack with her cigarette smoking new man, Zach (Graham Phillips) is busy fixing computers or something at the campaign office. Honestly, this entire story line bored me because I couldn’t understand why it was such a big deal. Zach was hiding it because he thought his mom would be… mad? Jealous? What? Not sure. But Alicia and an Eli-coached Zach talked it out and now Zach is working at the campaign fixing computers. Hopefully this story, unlike the “Zach is fixing computers at Lockhart/Gardner” story, goes somewhere. The writers seem very excited that they made a computer genius kid, but they have no idea what to do now. Perhaps Zach will win (or lose) his father the election!

Which reminds me… what the hell day is it in Good Wife time? When is the Gubernatorial Election? Do we have any idea?

Anyway, there was a case this week, but that didn’t really matter at all – Will (Josh Charles) was representing some lady that probably hired the yoga instructor she was having an affair with to kill her husband. Typical. Things weren’t going well because Alicia gave Laura (Amanda Peet) one piece of  cliched advice in the hallway and which led Laura to go from bumbling lawyer to super lawyer. Alicia is Just. That. Good. But that wasn’t the issue – the real issue was that when Will was at he bar with his drinking buddy Kalinda (Archie Panjabi) he ran into the judge on the case, Judge Creary (Judd Hirsch) who immediately went into a diatribe about how they were going to lose, Will is a disgraced disbarred lawyer and their client was guilty. Since this is a bench trial, not a jury trial, that was not good news.

But, you know, judges are supposed to be impartial and all that, so Will was also a bit shocked that Judge Creary was so vocal about his intentions. He went to Diane (Christine Baranski), and they brought Alicia to court to basically request a trial within the trial to see if Judge Creary was fit to judge the case impartially. He wasn’t impressed. Neither was Alicia when the judge in charge of this mini-trial was  Judge Dunaway (Kurt Fuller) one of the people she basically alienated when she sat on the Blue Ribbon Panel.

The difference being, Judge Dunaway, unlike Judge Creary, was able to remain impartial even in the face of the unfortunate tactics Lockhart/Gardner pulled to show the Creary was a mean ol’ drunk who was out to get Will and their client (who was sooo guilty, by the way). Was anyone else uncomfortable with how this went down? Cary (Matt Czuchry) went to a poker game (that looked like one Logan Huntzberger would have been involved in… where was Ace?) and got his friend to spill on Judge Creary. Kalinda pretended to be a drunk in order to talk to a woman who went to AA with him. It was all very…. not kosher. I’m curious if this will come back to bite them all in the ass.

But I can’t really be worried about that right now. Because I’m worried about poor Cary. Here’s what cracked me up about this story. Up until the last act, it totally played like a RomCom if it had been given a different musical score and added a few pieces of witty banter. Follow along…

A couple, Kalinda and Nick (Marc Warren), get back together after some time apart. Feeling out their new social standings, they keep their relationship mostly a secret, but of course she tells her BFF, Alicia. Being the type of woman she is, Kalinda is charming and flirty, even with her handsome co-worker, Cary. Seeing this, Nick feels the need to make a show of his manhood when alone with Cary, just so the competition knows their place. There are even a few bizarre “your suit is gay” remarks that weirded me out as much as it did Cary. And here’s the kicker – the true RomCom trope. Kalinda gets a call from Alicia, and sensing her friend is having a bit of a day, she offers Alicia to go for drinks soon. Nick, being a man, assumes the co-worker on the phone is Cary. So when Kalinda goes into the restroom he calls the number back and of course, Cary picks up! Oh classic misunderstanding all to be cleared up with a bit of exposition and a declaration of love at the end. Oh wait.. no. That’s the RomCom version. This version – Nick hires someone to beat the crap out of Cary in the rain. Not. Cool. No one hurts pretty, pretty Cary!

Of course, the previews show nothing about that. But I really, really need Alicia to take down Nick because he hurt her BFF. Also, I need her to pull a Rory Gilmore and call Cary’s unfeeling father and shame him into coming to the hospital to see him.

But I don’t know if any of that happens next week. What I do know – it’s Thanksgiving and Owen (Dallas Roberts) and their mom (played by the formidable Stockard Channing) are on which brings me much joy! But hopefully Cary is okay too. And the Nick thing ends soon.

What did you think of the episode? A lot of it seemed like it was just a space holder til something more important happens, but there is potential for repercussions from all of these stories – I hope so!

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Photo courtesy of CBS

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